Happy New Years! Welcome to the second full year of Sam and Dan Games! I'm personally very excited about his year. I'm looking forward to Creature Universe TD having it's first releases (in a few months), I'm looking forward to more PTD2, and just doing what I love to do which is make games for all of you!

Thanks!
I can't say this enough but without you guys we couldn't be doing this at all! Soon we will call on you guys to help us keep going. This month (I hope) we will be doing a fundraiser with some pretty slick prizes for donating. Dan and I are working on what the different prizes will be; one of my favorite prizes is being able to have some of the Creature Universe Starters on your PTD2 profile! We will also be adding titles in the Trading Center as the prizes for the fundraiser. So under your name it can say like "The Trainer" or "The Breeder" etc. What kind of titles would you guys like to see in the fundraiser? Also what kind of prizes would you like to see? Let me know in the comments below.

The Fate of the Avatar Chat!
Many of you have noticed that the Avatar Chat is no longer in the blog. I took it down a few days ago mainly because since I didn't add moderator options the chat was getting out of control and it wasn't something I wanted to allow to keep happening. While I wished I had enough time to add Moderation options, this wasn't something I could do. I think the Avatar Chat was a fun experiment I wanted to try out and I think it was a success as far as having people be able to talk to each other and move around in an environment. These are the building blocks to an online game that I wish to make some day. So let's give the Avatar Chat a moment of silence. R.I.P Avatar Chat...

New Year's Resolutions!
I don't know about you but I make resolutions every year. This year is even more special since I'm getting married. A lot of my resolutions are about getting ready to be married, cooking more, getting in shape, cleaning more.. Just being more responsible, can't let Zaira (my fiance) do everything! Thinking about these I wrote down a few of the resolutions I had for SnD Games. What were some things that I wanted to change? Hmm.. there were many! Time for a list!

Spend more time polishing content - This one comes from the end of PTD1. Sadly I haven't been organized enough to really follow through with this one. I get really excited about putting a lot of things in the weekly progress list and in the end I don't have enough time for everything and the things that I end up doing are some times rushed. My resolution is to spend more time on content to make it better, even if we get less content right away.

More User Choices - I think at the beginning of PTD1 I was really good about getting you guys involved in what happened in the game but slowly as more and more people started joining us it became harder to really manage all of it but I think I can do better than just letting you guys choose the Mystery Gift. This week I want to hear about what titles, and prizes would be good in the fundraiser.

Realistic Weekly Progress - This one is similar to the polishing one. I want to make the progress list something that I can actually achieve for that week and not something that is impossible. The way I will solve this is by having a private list of things that I want to do and only showing the ones I think I can do for that week in the weekly progress list. I might make the list public and have you guys pick which one to do next in the future.

More Communication - Back when we had only a handful of fans, or even hundreds of fans, I was out there answering comments, replying to emails, my goal was to reply to everything. As the game started to take off it was taking more and more time to reply. Some people wanted to have chats with me, emailing me back and forth. While I really wanted to just chat, it was taking a lot of time away from actually working on the games. As time went by I barely even tried to reply and only went after the most important ones. My resolution is to do more communication.

A lot of these as you might have noticed have a lot to do with organization and time management. This is something that I'm working on in both my professional and personal life. I personally think that life is about trying to keep a balance between all the things you want to do and things you have to do. My hope is to get better at keeping the balance and that maybe talking about it out loud can help one of you also.

Weekly Progress
Now on to the content! This week there will be a mystery gift, at the time of writing this grass seems to be winning and that would mean a grass starter poll! Fun times! Besides the Mystery Gift I want to make a new Story Level with a bit of story this time around and right now I want it to focus on Bellsprout Tower and what is happening there. The last thing will be to make the Zapdos battle a little less intense at that level and also look at the rival fight and tune it a bit more for that stage of the game.

Alpha v1.30.1: Released!

Mystery Gift

Change link in game

Change Graphic in game

Change Server Code

Get link and code from sponsor

Change Blog Links

New Pokemon - Treecko

Graphics

New Attacks

Absorb

New Abilities

Unburden

Stats

Move List

Evolutions

Add to Breeding Center

Add to Trading Center

Story Level - Bellsprout Tower

Monk character

Tower Layout

Tower Map

Intro

Waves

Ending

New Attacks

Bellsprout's Vine Hold

Bellsprout's Razor Leaf

Tune Gym battle, Zapdos and Rival fight to better fit the level and skill of the player at that point in the game

That's all I have for you on this short week. Thanks for stopping by and keep checking back to see how I'm doing on my progress this week. As always, let me know what you think about the fundraiser, and the resolutions. Also what are some of your resolutions for this year? I would love to hear them. Sam out!

Hey guys! Just in case you're worrying that you'll type won't win. Once Grass is voted for MG, then it will be a fair battle. One of the greatest reasons maybe because of the starters. Anyways, if it is Grass, then I'm choosing Treeko. :D

Who's played Super Smash Bros Brawl? I know It's got nothing to do with this but you can be pikemon on it. You can be Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Lucario and Ash (he comes with squirtle, (The grass type thingy) and Charizard!) You can play the game on Wii. A new one is coming out and you can be Mewtwo on it. The new one is for Wii U and PS3. It's story level is so cool! Sam I suggest you take a look at this because it's really good for future games! I RECOMMEND THAT EVERYONE WHO PLAYS PTD 2 PLAYS SUPER SMASH BROS BRAWL! (You can be much, much more characters on the game but they aren't pokemon!)

Sam I don't understand what fan forums and facilitate trades mean (actually I don't know what loads of things mean) but you can see that we want the Avatar chat back so please can you put it back on. Please!

Dan and I are working on what the different prizes will be; one of my favorite prizes is being able to have some of the Creature Universe Starters on your PTD2 profile??? Noooooo, Please do not combine games, please, No creatures in PTD, only pokemon!

What is the point of having different avatars if you can't walk around at will and talk to people? The avatar is pretty pointless if there is no avatar chat. Your avatar pretty much just stands in a level in ptd1. There is no point of having an avatar without an avatar chat. The forum chat is not the same. The forum chat is just talk not walking. The walking feature and being able to get different avatars as prizes is what made the avatar chat fun and unique. the forum chat is just words. :( <----SAD FACE. Please Sam bring it or something like it back.

What is the point of having different avatars if you can't walk around at will and talk to people? The avatar is pretty pointless if there is no avatar chat. Your avatar pretty much just stands in a level in ptd1. There is no point of having an avatar without an avatar chat. The forum chat is not the same. The forum chat is just talk not walking. The walking feature and being able to get different avatars as prizes is what made the avatar chat fun and unique. the forum chat is just words. :( <----SAD FACE. Please Sam bring it or something like it back.

I dunno! Just felt like mentioning it up. But It's a real game and I recommend this to everyone. It's got characters from Mario games on it, Kirby games, pokemon games, Sonic the hedgehog games, The Legend of Zelda Games, Star Fox, Game Cube games and even Samus games.

awesomecarman everyone in the chat room was annoying at some point. whether it be asking a million times who would like to trade of just typing random letters to swearing. no one was not annoying in there at some point.

If you think hard about it. Sam did have a good reason to remove the Avatar Chat. Just think. It was getting out of control a bit and read the blog again! Sam has got a good reason for removing the Avatar Chat.

Frankly I hated the Avatar Chat since every time I went there someone was spamming crap and the smarter people weren't heard due to the spammers. For prizes, I suggest either Daily Coins, or cheaper SnD coins specifically for the fundraiser sorta like a sale. And Snivy better win. I want Contrary :D

Well I traded a shiny spearow for a vanillite and my lvl 30 shiny jirachi became lvl 12 and its moves were poison powder, synthesis, tackle, and leer instead of its normal move set. I could just let it relearn its normal moves though. This has happened in other different scenarios too.

Maybe the titles will come with cool avatars, but people seem to prefer the Creature Universe starters instead.

I remember in an earlier blog there was something I responded to and the idea was to add avatars that look like things from not Pokemon. Ex.- a Mario avatar, Sonic (the hedgehog), Altaïr ibn-La'Ahad, Naruto, or maybe even real life figures like Christopher Columbus (and people/characters like them).

As for titles... stuff like The Pokemon Master or The Collector or Pokemon Academic Graduate or something.

Even if it has a few changes, I have to agree (I never really went there and now I really wish I did). One reason is now that this will have more trades up when this was meant for updates not trades (but I don't know for sure).

Sounds like the job for a poll! Perhaps banning the CUTD creatures from multiplayer (if it ever gets developed) would be a good way to assuage possible concerns? I can't think of any other real issues.

Fan forum: a place where other players of this game gather and discuss the game. Basically a website where you can post stuff. Check out the FAQ link at the top for a link to the website.

Facilitate: to make easier. The thing is that people used Avatar chat to search for trade partners, so Sam is looking for another way to make trading fun and easy, outside of the basic trade options in the Pokemon Center.

I once offered the idea (later figuring out you already thought of it too), but only because I thought it would be cool and a nice transition from Pokemon style games to games that have more Sam & Dan Games written on them.

Maybe a special TM, or different costumes for in the game? Maybe even for one of the highest ranked tiers, a custom costume, i.e., someone could request the team of artists to make a costume for their character via specifications. Paintbrushes for shiny, shadow, and regular would also be cool, so that we could change that value for a particular pokemon.

Are you thinking of in game advantages, or just cool things? In game advantages could be easy--early access to TMs, etc.

One thing that I would personally want would be early access to CUTD testing. Another idea for a rather high tier prize would be to choose the next mystery gift pokemon. Or maybe you want to make it more random, and have a lottery for people who donate a certain amount, and one of them gets to choose the next mystery gift pokemon for everyone to receive!

snivy is ok but turtwig is a lot better. and i simply dont understand the idiocracy in the brains of those who chose treecko. treecko's generation is my favourite but i still see treecko as the worst starter in the history of starters.

Sam, I've never got into the New Year resolution thing, but I guess I can try. I need to prioritize my life more so I'm going to be on the blogs less often and concentrate on my school work more (that way I will stop falling behind on sleep and free time to spend with friends and family). I will still be commenting here and there, but I got to improve my life (as your resolutions for you). Just didn't want you to think you were losing a fan.

Currently Treecko and Snivy are neck and neck, with Snivy about 10 ahead. Never saw it be this close. (I guess lots of people prefer fast Pokemon (possibly many fast Pokemon seem cooler and stronger?))

hey Sam this is dose not really have to do with the game but one of your Resolution is the same as my get in better shape one thing you could do is 100 push ups and 100 setups its hard be worth it.Oh and good work!

To all the people complaining about Avatar Chat being gone and how they could ignore rude people:

There was users posting pornographic links in the chat and sexually harassing other users. Some don't know how to do the ignore thing and some don't even know how to tell when a link is porn, and the chat had minors too. Sam could have gotten into huge trouble if authorities had found out about what had been occurring in that chat. And besides, you guys can chat in forums, Xat and exchange comments on Youtube. 8|

SAM!!!! Something is wrong with my breeding center!!! I don't received the hatched eggs and the parents lost the equiped objects (In this case i've lost a gold incense; realize that in the description of gold or dark incense isn't said that these are one-use objects)!!! i've e-mailed you, but u don't answer me... WHAT THE HELL CAN I DO?!?! This bug disgusts me a lot

Sam I've got an idea! the avatar chat for PTD 1 can go and then when you finish or getting through Pokemon Tower Defense 2, you can add Avatar Chat again, but for PTD 2. Okay, that plan wasn't thought through that good but you can bring it back for the second version of PTD 1. Can't you?

Sam come on, your a genius just like Joel and his PTD fan movies. And you do stuff that we can't do such as game making (and other stuff)! And even a dummy like me can see you have made a terrible mistake about removing the Avatar Chat. So can a genius like you see that he has made a big mistake or is he going to let his game fans get upset and angry at him because he deleted something they all loved?

*moment of silence*... okay so sam I think it would be a good idea if you put the chat function into the game or at least set up the server so we could meet other people in the game if its to difficult then forget but with this people will be able to communicate in game and I think you could even find people to help moderate the game seriously I think some people already have up lvl 100 grinds that aren't hacked give those people a job to do other then kill random bot AIs